I am relatively new to networking; I love to learn, but like to firmly grasp a concept before I move on. This being said, I researched what a trunk port is and I found this definition:
[It transmits] data from multiple local area networks (LANs) or
virtual LANs (VLANs) across a single interconnect between switches or
routers.
My question is, why can't I just connect two switches to one another without configuring a trunk port? What is the difference between a standard port and a trunk port? Perhaps I just don't understand it very well. Help would be very much appreciated!
Best Answer
To undestand that, it is important to understand the concept of VLANs.
Typically there is often a tagged VOIP VLAN and and a untagged Network VLAN on Office LAN connections. The wireing is through the phone ports just needing a single cable for two different LANs. The PC is then connected to the phone.
On the switch side a trunk port is often configured carring multiple tagged VLANs. There are many situations where this is used and helpful when dealing with complex networks.
Still technically you can also configure trunk ports to only carry a untagged network. Further many switches do allow configuration of standard ports to carry multiple tagged VLANs. Often switch trunk ports also have special characteristics like not filtering on layer2 mac addresses, which is typically not possible on standard ports. Or beeing able to configure the trunk ports for port mirroring.